


Honey, Let's Go Wrong

by windfish



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: 1k wordcount about beating your child yeah, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, I don't like to abuse metatagging bc I want to spare AO3 servers but that's seriously it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 10:24:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9889745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windfish/pseuds/windfish
Summary: It was almost like a game by this point. The rules were simple: don’t break them.





	

“This hurts me more than it hurts you, son.” Something about the words felt stilted, in a way that he couldn’t place, and maybe _couldn’t_ understand. How did it hurt him at _all?_

Guzma laid his hands flat on the floor, even with his knees on the cool tile, and clenched his eyes shut. A deep breath, to compose himself. “I’m sorry.” His voice was quiet and strained—he knew it wouldn’t work, it _never_ worked, and just the idea that it _might_ work shriveled up and died and he shoved the notion deep into his chest as silence permeated the air.

“Sorry?”

He forgot the _sir._ He always forgot the sir, as if his brain was so jellied and useless that he couldn’t manage to spit out a single extra syllable without cracking his façade. “… sir. I’m sorry, _sir_.” The pressure on the word was wrong. It was _aggressive_ in nature, he knew it, the scolding tone he held for himself coming out against his father instead. He really, really screwed up this time.

“If you’re so sorry, why did you do it in the first place?”

Guzma bit his tongue and focused his gaze onto the back of his eyelids, starting to grow pained with the force he was using to keep himself from _peeking_. It was _almost_ like a game by this point. The rules were simple: don’t break them. He thought to playing hide-and-seek with Kukui, and how hiding came to him like a second skin, his bruised ribs and hunched spine coated with invisibility and a dead stillness. It was a game he could always win, shuttered away in cabinets or in the limbs of trees and counting down the seconds to Kukui’s loss.

\---

 _It wasn’t cheating or breaking the rules to hide_ near _the Tapu’s shrine, just to hide in the shrine itself. Kukui was scared to get any closer than the bridge, and for that, Guzma felt confident that he would win_ again _, a happy anxiety dancing in his chest at the concept. He could see the older boy loop back around, looking up in trees and crouching down to peek into a hollowed log, with only ten seconds to victory._

Guzma was brought back to the present, dimly aware of his location in the haze of his brain, by the telltale cracking sound of steel against flesh.

 _Ten._ _He checked an overturned boat for the third time, just in case._

“One.” His voice remained faithful to his steady pose and demeanor, uncorrupted by the shooting pain at his side.

_Nine. A Yungoos snarled at Kukui as he disrupted the nest, and Guzma struggled to restrain his laughter._

“Two.” A breath he didn’t know he was holding came out as a slight shudder—the second hit had come much quicker and harder than usual.

_Eight. Kukui’s head shot up at the snort, and he struggled to place the location._

“Three.” The tips of his fingers ached as he pushed them fruitlessly into the tile, trying to transfer the burn at his shoulders straight into the floor.

_Seven. Even if he noticed where he was, it would take nearly five seconds to cross the bridge on its own._

“Four.” Pain had started to flow from his body, tender skin splitting beneath the force of metal and wood crashing into his back.

_Six. Kukui’s bare feet slapped the ground as he darted to the bridge._

“Five.” Silence and a moment of rest followed this strike, fear and pain creeping up his spine in alternating waves as a few droplets of blood dripped from the newly opened wound. Collecting himself, he took a breath and tried to relax his shoulders, his fists, his toes, his teeth, his eyes—

“Five.”

_He was off by five seconds, enough time for Kukui to dart across the bridge, nearly slipping into the ravine, and slapping him on the back. “I found you!”_

His mind reeled, anxiety and fury and terror and sadness and a crippling apprehension all vying for the primary focus in his brain.

“You can’t count.” It was blunt—not a question, not something to reply to. He _couldn’t_ count, and felt blood rush to his face as he let out a strangled exhalation. It wasn’t a _sob_ , a sob would be breaking the rules, and he’d have to face another ten lashes, to match the ten he’d already have to repeat. “You couldn’t even make it to your own _age_ , Guzma?”

“No, sir, I-I co-couldn’t.” His body betrayed him, a whining sob escaping his lips.

“You’re about to make _me_ cry, kid. I didn’t think I raised a retard.” The putter was replaced with the sand wedge in his hands, and his father eyed the club with some scrutiny. “Let’s try again. You got ten fingers. Count them if it’s so hard.“

“One.”

 _Kukui had tattled on him to Hala, and dread pooled in his stomach. He practically begged Hala to somehow_ untell _his dad, as if Hala could play it off as anything other than a very serious offense, or as if his father would somehow listen. Kahunas didn’t do take-backs._

_“I finally won!” wasn’t meant to be a taunt, he knew, but he found himself shoving the older boy out of instinct, and worsening his own punishment. He couldn’t help it—he couldn’t count, he couldn’t control himself, and he couldn’t even hide from his friends anymore._

He couldn’t even remember what _number_ he had said before he had the wind knocked out of him, collapsing to the floor and nearly seizing up from the panic gripping at his chest as his own _lungs_ fought against him, spasms pushing what little air he got back out of him and shoving him back into the reality of his situation.

It had, miraculously, been enough for his father—though he considered it more a blessing of the golf clubs than his own luck or prosperity. Blood had started to dry on his back, and Guzma knew he would have to wash the clubs that night to keep them from rusting or tarnishing, but he found himself almost thankful for their brutal limitations cutting his session short.

\---

“What do you say, son?”

“Th—” The words died at his throat, merging into a tired squeak.

“Men don’t mumble. Speak up, unless you want to finish the session.” He didn’t have to follow his father’s stern gaze, more than well aware that he was eyeing the heavier clubs in the duffel bag. Part of him entertained the idea of letting him finishing the job, a nine-iron to the skull, just once.  

“Thank you for settin’ me straight, sir.”

**Author's Note:**

> Messy & un-beta'd but I had to do SOMETHING. I haven't written very much fic since starting school, though I've certainly fantasised about doing it...


End file.
